Like it or not, Keir Starmer will not win without England The Labour leader will prove he is serious about power when he properly engages with the new politicised Englishness Photo: AF archive / Alamy Stock Photo Over the past few weeks there’s been a great deal of commentary marking the first anniversary of Keir Starmer’s leadership of the Labour Party. Critics and supporters have variously assailed or hailed the ways in which the party has changed since Starmer took up the reins. The prevailing assumption is that for better or worse, change there has been. Yet from the perspective of those interested in the “territorial politics” of the state, there’s more continuity than change: most strikingly, Labour still has a giant England-shaped hole in its thinking.